Yesterday I had the great pleasure to have a lengthy conversation with Kevin Martin, vocalist for the band Candlebox. For those of you not familiar with the band, they are one of many to come out of the Seattle music scene in the 90s (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains). Grunge groups burst onto the national scene and connected with a large segment of the population from the onset.

The conversation with Kevin kept my mind racing during my return trip last night. His outlook on the music industry was refreshing and contained many items we can apply to today’s web. I want to touch on a small list of them – authenticity, having a holistic view, staying humble, and making real connections.

Be authentic

Fan or not, the biggest complaint about top 40 radio today (Nickelback, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus) is that it’s all manufactured fluff. It’s fake and built from the ground up to sell copies today and churn through musical acts as tools for profit. What they’re lacking is authenticity.

Compare this to the Twitter streams of ComcastCares and General Motors. In the case of ComcastCares, you clearly see that Comcast employee Frank Eliason cares about a customer’s experience and loves what he does. Contrast this to General Motors, who’s account GMblogs is not much more than an outlet for carefully crafted press releases and littered with responses shamelessly pushing the company line. One company is building good will and value, and the other is extending the perception of an out-of-touch and deaf company.

Have a holistic view

As a band member, if you’re only concerned with your role, then you’re accomplishing nothing more than making noise. Members of a good band understand the instruments of their band mates and how those instruments work together to create something larger than the individual pieces.

Kevin made a great point during our conversation in saying that a good drummer plays to the bass line and listed a number of the other connections between instruments. When the individual understands the role of another, he knows when to let him take his solo, provide fill/assistance in the moments of need, and when it’s ok take his own place in front and center. The same is true in your approach for your website, mobile presence, marketing efforts, and social media strategy. At any given time resources need to be shifted to find the correct positioning and response for the current environment.

Social media is all of the rage at the moment, and rightfully so, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for every business or that you should be setting a certain percentage of resources aside for it. On the other hand, your market may demand that it’s the single largest expenditure during a given period. The same is true of your website, mobile presence, and marketing efforts. Step back, take a holistic view and find what works for you.

Stay Humble

No one ever got to their current situation all on their own. It takes a great team behind Candlebox to put on each show. There is equally as many people you never see, than those on stage. Candlebox has a great crew which provides support in setup, tear-down, and shine in moments of emergency. Kevin and the band know this and haven’t let multiple chart busting songs swell their egos. He’s approachable and appreciative of what he’s done and what he has been given.

Just because your company may have found success with a hit product or service, don’t let that get to your head. Success is an ongoing process, and one which requires more than a single hit. Stay humble as a company, keep your ear to the ground, and take feedback when starting work on your next hit.

Make real connections

Among the long list of nationals my band has opened up for in the last year (Saving Abel, FUEL, Smile Empty Soul, etc.), I’ve seen none of them connect with their fans the way Candlebox did last night. A number of actions combined to show that the band wanted much more than to just play through the set and then head back to the tour bus. The guys stayed over an hour and a half, equal to the length of their set, to take pictures, give autographs and talk to each and every fan in attendance. Every single one.

Whether it’s engaged two-way conversation on Twitter or offline events, the need for real connections has never been greater. Simply sending out a generic email campaign isn’t going to cut it. Being willing to spend your time to have a conversation, showing appreciation to customers, and embracing new communication channels are not just “nice to haves” today, they’re the baseline.

A pretty smart guy I know has long-run his successful Columbus business by a simple philosophy – hire the person, then create the function. This principal, at least in this instance has proven to be extremely valuable to the organization’s growth. Hire the person right for the organization, provide a little guidance, discover their talent.

Looking at this philosophy through a slightly different lens, one could argue that when “hiring the person”, one considers their talent – as they are clearly and obviously interwoven. My cousin Billy might be the nicest guy in the world, but if hiring a box of rocks seems a better investment, look elsewhere. On the subject of talent (and character), I recently read an article on the World Cup that suggested a Nation’s team is representative of that Nation’s characteristics. The same applies for business. Bring in the well balanced talent, construct a great team, accomplish great things.

And so recently I’ve noticed a bit of a parallel to this philosophy with Facebook. A seemingly endless series of high-end talent acquisitions has me very intrigued by what Facebook might have in store in the near future. The most recent of these buys were announced yesterday – Matt Papakipos and Jocelyn Goldfein. Matt, before leading the architecture team for Google Chrome OS was the director of architecture at NVIDIA and Co-Founder of PeakSteam. Jocelyn Goldfein hails from VMWare where she was VP and general manager of the desktop business unit. A few years back, another Googler made the Facebook leap – Sheryl Sandberg. Previously Google’s VP of Global Online Sales and Operations, she came on as Facebook’s COO. Before that, it was Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt (Firefox co-founders), and more recently is was Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor, the creators of Gmail, Adsense and Friendfeed.

I won’t bore you with analogies to famous international soccer players, but it is fairly obvious that Facebook is (and has been) building an all-star team. Hire the person/talent, create the function.

And even though I would love to be a fly on the wall at those secretive Facebook brainstorming sessions, I look around the dynamIt office and notice something similar occurring here. A microcosm of Facebook-grade talent acquisition. As the freshman on the team (though maybe not for long), I love knowing our team is primed for great(er) things in the near future – and that our bench is ‘deep’, as they say. I see that “hire the person/talent then create the function” mentality in action, and I invite you to come see it for yourself.

Rock on the Range: How State Your Cause used social media and gorilla marketing

In addition to being a developer here at dynamIt, I’m also the manager for the Columbus-based band State Your Cause. 2010 has been a phenomenal year of progress for SYC – opening for national acts Saving Abel and Smile Empty Soul, recording in the Orlando studio of Brett Hestla (Creed, Dark New Day), and most recently, playing on this year’s Rock on the Range. As I begin to look back on Rock on the Range and analyze our execution, I thought of sharing an inside look at what we did through each step of the process.

Leading up to the live performance

Coming off of a few national shows, we were contacted about being part of a “Battle of the Bands” held at the local music venue Alrosa Villa. Just with all other opportunities, we analyzed the cost/benefit of the event and decided to participate. The total bands turned out to be 28, including a number of notable competitors.

After we committed to the show, a full-force push began. While I left all things musical up to the band, I laid the framework for our social media campaign and offline marketing efforts. During this time I planned out the procedures for our messaging life cycle – what message, how often, and what channels for each stage. Ahead of the performance we populated the expected online outlets – MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube.

Our message was simple – We need EVERYONE in attendance. We discounted tickets, made combination deals, and in some cases even offered transportation. A body in the crowd had more value than the price of the ticket. The energy and appearance of a large and excited crowd is invaluable – even more so when you’re being judged. Beg, borrow or steal, we did everything we could do to maximize the crowd.

Secondly, we helped the crowd feel more energized by providing props. The day before the show I bought poster-board, markers and a large number of white shirts. It’s amazing how great a crowd looks when part of a “white-out” and holding hand made signs (college basketball anyone?). Total cost for maximizing the crowds appearance? Less than $50.

Day of the performance

All live performance set times were randomly determined and we were given the first set on day 2 (of a total of 3 days). We didn’t receive any favors – having our set begin before 6:00pm. We began the day making a round of calls to those fans we had yet to get confirmation from, continuing to maximize attendance. In the couple of hours ahead of the performance, updates were sent through all online channels and the core fan group began distributing stickers, signs and posters to be decorated.

Everyone with the band felt that we had a solid performance which represented some of our best work. We cleared our equipment off the stage and then went to meet both our existing and newly made fans. Feedback from everyone was positive. We left the venue feeling content with whatever outcome may be delivered to us.

Text voting period

After the performance we began the push for first-round voting. Voting for this round was done by cell phone text messaging. We’ve all seen/heard it – “text XYZ to 555” to vote for your pick. The demographic for which this is the most likely (about 16-35) was our target fan base. Call us lucky, call us a good fit – we were positioned well for moving on.

Text messaging is an interesting medium. There’s undoubtedly large overlap with those who understand text-based voting and those who use social media. That’s something we knew we could take advantage of and would be a big advantage.

Semi-finalists announced

As results were announced on ABC 6 / FOX 28, all team members of SYC stayed glued to the TV. When we heard our name, the flood of phone calls and text messages began. Selected to advance, we started two additional promotional pushes.

First we quickly realized that distributing the Fox 28 contest URL, the medium used for final voting, was cumbersome at best. I quickly registered a handful of domain names that would be easy to communicate to fans and would forward the visitor on to the voting page. These domains, led by vote4stateyourcause.com, would be crucial to us mobilizing those people we engaged on the street.

Secondly, we designed a recognizable Rock on the Range themed poster to distribute to local businesses. This poster clearly communicated the ROTR event and also included State Your Cause and the previously mentioned domain name. We distributed these to everyone in our collective network. While this primarily included bars and music venues, we also expanded the list to restaurants, coffee shops and a music store. All high traffic, long duration sites were considered.

Winner Announced

As with the previous announcement, everyone was glued to their TV sets. We knew that the competition was strong and we were unsure if the competition had out hustled us. We felt confident that we’d done just about all we could, but not if it was enough.

Then the announcement came – State Your Cause was going to Rock on the Range. When the word came, we all were left speechless. Everything we did worked. While we may not have executed perfectly, it was enough to beat out the other two bands.

Leading up to Rock on the Range

With the competition over, our attention was now focused on maximizing our exposure ahead of the ROTR weekend. We were given the opportunity to perform on FOX 28′s “Good Morning Columbus” as part of winning the contest. We set up our equipment, rocked the house and was subsequently asked to return to the show later in the week.

While it would have been easy to coast into Rock on the Range, we did not. One of the floated ideas we acted on was to capitalize on our tickets with backstage access. Rather than giving them to a select group of fans (and hurt our relationship with others), we did what we felt was fair – raffled them off. This was not the only motivation however. In quickly setting up a contest site, we enabled ourselves to collect contact information from entrants nationwide. Anyone who wanted the chance to win the tickets would provide their name, email, mobile number, and address. All information collected can be used to target communication to them in the future. Total cost? Just $10 for the domain name.

Rock on the Range weekend

Being given access to some of your favorite bands can be an overwhelming experience. Getting access all at the same time even more so. Instead of getting completely wrapped up in personal objectives, I set the ground work for things to come. The level of access to key people within the industry during this weekend is something that we may never have again.

Media outlets flowed throughout the grounds, but most also had a presence in the dedicated media tent located backstage. It was here that I set up live interviews for the band with stations throughout the country. While we’re progressive in our approach to promotion, the level of exposure from traditional radio is still unmatched by most outlets. We spent a number of hours circulating each station and spreading our name.

In addition to engaging radio outlets, we also generated leads from suppliers, potential sponsors, and band management contacts. With a number of the relationships currently in development, the weekend has already proved to be one of the most important milestones in our short history.

We left the weekend with more than we could have imagined. Access to 30,000+ music fans, pockets full of new contacts, and an experience none of us will forget.

Yesterday’s Columbus AMA June Luncheon featured a presentation by Google’s Head of Retail, Mark Marinacci. After delivering last year’s most heralded presentation, Mark was invited back — this time to discuss Google’s latest search innovation.

Keeping the presentation relevant to the marketing community, Mark discussed Procter and Gamble’s research on the importance of the First Moment of Truth (FMOT). In 2005, P&G defined FMOT as “the first interaction between a shopper and a product on a store’s shelf.” This has become a foundational concept in any academic marketing curriculum and, though only five years old, is an absolute given in B2C marketing.

“Yes, and…?” is, as Mark puts it, Google’s approach to everything – they accept truths but always look further. Google decided that, while FMOT is inarguably true, its antecedent must also be true: and so the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) was born. Backed by research in IRI’s 2009 Economic Longitude Study and validated to the general public by John Battelle‘s 2005 The Search, ZMOT is the phenomenon that says a majority of interaction between a brand and a consumer occurs before the consumer ever sees the product on a shelf. With access to – and creation of – data exploding, the ZMOT occurs online.

Where Consumers Are Making Their Purchase Decisions

Having now built rapport with the audience, Marinacci jumped right into his talk about Google’s innovation in search. All else aside, I walked out the door certain of two things:

1. As evidenced by its Super Bowl campaign this year, Google believes (as strongly as ever) in the importance of search
2. With overwhelming evidence on its side, Google believes that the future of the internet is in mobile.

While it might not seem like it, Google is selling out for those two beliefs. Need proof? Look no further than Android. Yes, Google and Apple are battling to be your mobile platform of choice, but as MG Siegler says, they’re doing it with different motives:

At the end of the day, Android exists so that Google can get more people searching — and keep them searching as mobile devices overtake computers. The iPhone exists to be one of the mobile devices that overtakes computers so that Apple can keep selling high-margin machines.

There is no doubt, either, that Google understands that search is fundamentally changing. Just because they’re selling out for search, doesn’t mean they’re selling out for the search we remember from 2005. The six trends Mark says Google is using to innovate search are personalization, language, localization, realtime, video and, of course, mobile.

After looking at these trends, it’s definitely not hard to see why Google believes in mobile. First and foremost, experts are already in agreement that, sometime between 2013 and 2015, mobile devices will surpass desktop computers as the primary vehicle with which we access the internet.

Taking that assumption as a given, mobile is clearly where search can best be personalized, localized, and delivered in realtime. While I’ll be accessing google from the palm of my hand via iPhone, I’m certainly looking forward to everything Google has in store for my mobile search future.

About a year ago on a late night flight from Houston to CMH I picked up a book about the human brain and dove so deep into it I literally read as I walked off the plane, down the terminal and as I stood in line waiting for my luggage. Thanks to Sterling Commerce and Paul Haggard, today I had the opportunity to listen to the author (Daniel Pink) who reinforced principles that I first learned in elementary school (yes, the best class I ever had – Alert- was in second grade until 7th, ok I wasn’t in elementary the whole time, but I digress) but really hadn’t heard anyone voice value in since. Dan (author of A Whole New Mind, Free Agent Nation, and most recently DRiVE) was the keynote at the TechColumbus Innovation Summit – an event centered around innovation in technology and the reason I played hookie from billable work for two hours yesterday afternoon.

Dan’s perspective is interesting because while most business people you encounter are focused on efficiency, management and processes, he says that while the left side of our brain is important (the logic based side) it isn’t sufficient. The right side of our brain – the side that is artistic, houses our big picture thinking, helps us define context and synthesize the world around us- is often overlooked and undervalued.

For some agencies the web is almost entirely logical, running through processes as efficiently as possible to create web presence that doesn’t really solve a business problem, push to create something big or create impact. It’s the reason our industry can sometimes be commoditized.

Great web (all aspects of it from strategy to design to development) comes from our right brain. Great web solutions are a symphony a web design, strategy, devices, process and resources. It solves problems and pushes to create digital experiences our clients didn’t know they needed AND are great business tools. Great web isn’t a digital assembly line putting website widgets together and it can’t be just an automated machine that just pumps out product.

At dynamIt we may use processes and logic to create great digital experiences (and that part is crucial), but its the right side of our brains that makes our work great – our focus on design (both aesthetic and user experience), the ability to conceptualize beyond the way we’ve done it before, our sense of humor/play, and our individual and collective drive to impact not just the project but the successes of our clients.

Columbus (Ohio) May 26^th, 2010- Charley’s Grilled Subs has a new website to serve its 400-plus restaurant locations worldwide and keep consumers mouths watering for its signature Philly Steaks, gourmet fries, and fresh lemonade.

Charley’s, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, chose local web design & engineering firm dynamIt Technologies for an extensive development and design overhaul. dynamIt worked to better craft the website to convey the brand image of Charley’s – quirky, fun humor combined with fresh, grilled goodness.

Putting Charley’s delicious menu offerings at the forefront of the site was a main goal, achieved by oversized images of cheese steaks, gourmet fries, and fresh squeezed lemonade showcased on the front page – a display sure to cause a taste bud frenzy. Charley’s strong franchise program, ranked #1 in its category in Entrepreneur Magazines 2009 list, is also highlighted in a new franchise section.

Included in the new release is full support for a mobile-friendly Charleys.com, allowing hungry customers to access the website on their mobile phones from anywhere. When hunger hits, the GPS enabled mobile version can locate the closest Charley’s location in just seconds.

The Charleys.com Mobile Site uses Built-In GPS of Smartphones, such as the iPhone, to find the Charley’s Grilled Subs location closest to hungry customers.

View Charley’s Site.

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About dynamIt: Based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio, dynamIt combines technical, creative, and business perspective to create strategic digital solutions with corporations, non-profits and international organizations. dynamIt’s core services include: digital brand strategy, information and application architecture, database design, graphic and user experience design, content management and application, database, intranet and website development. In addition, dynamIt crafts and executes integrated communication (PR and social web) initiatives and digital campaigns with experiential components.

For more information: Visit http://www.dynamit.us or call +1.614.538.0095